Asia-Pacific stocks demonstrate different directions

12:51 01.08.2018

On Wednesday, stock indices of the Asia-Pacific region showed mixed performance because Chinese production data turned out to be gloomy, and this week investors kept focusing on the outcomes of the meetings of the Fed and the Bank of England.

The two-day gathering of the Federal Reserve is going to conclude today. It’s expected that interest rates are going to stay intact, although investor are likely to closely follow the bank’s statement in order to learn about the prospects for tightening of the main financial institution’s policy.

It’s believed that on Thursday the Bank of England will probably have interest rates raised for the second time after the global financial meltdown in 2008.

Market participants also analyzed the news that the Trump administration intends to slap a 25% duty on imported Chinese goods worth $ 200 billion having imposed a 10% duty earlier for the purpose of putting pressure on the Chinese government and get a number of concessions.

In China, the Shanghai Composite Index headed south by 1.80% after the publication of dismal data on the index of activity in the manufacturing sector. The latest survey conducted by Caixin disclosed that China's manufacturing sector kept expanding in July, although at a weaker tempo. In July, PMI sagged to 50.8 from June’s reading of 51.

Additionally, Japanese stocks concluded up due to a weaker yen as well as upbeat outcomes regarding corporate revenue from Sharp, Sony and Nintendo.

The equities of Sharp Corp went up by 7.2%. Sony managed to ascend by 4.8%. As for Nintendo, it ramped up its capitalization by nearly 6.4% after its revenue for the first quarter jumped by 44% and sales of Nintendo Switch games went up too.

In July, the manufacturing sector in Japan kept expanding, although at a weaker tempo, as the latest Nikkei survey disclosed.